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Tuesday, 31 December 2013

I can't believe we are at the end of December, and the end of another year.

It's been a great year for me - I have been on maternity leave for most of the year and baby girl was born at the very start of spring. It's been a privilege to take our son to school and back every day, and see how he has settled into school life. I've also loved watching baby girl grow from a helpless little thing, to the curious and engaging little girl she is now.

I'd love to hear about your highlights for December, here are mine:

A work Christmas lunch in London. Me for a whole day!

Our son's first Christmas nativity. What a great innkeeper he was.

Visiting the German Christmas market in Birmingham, and a giant hot dog.

Tuesday, 10 December 2013

You may remember last week I posted about random acts of kindness. It seems strange that once you think of something, you notice it all around.

This week I've seen lots of kindness when out and about with baby girl. Small things like a door being held open, and people smiling and saying hello on the school run. If you believe the news we're a broken nation, but I don't think we are. People are good and kind, and those that are not are the exception.

I committed to performing a random act of kindness every week.. so here's this week's. It's not big, but will hopefully make a little boy smile.

Passing on a nearly new remote controlled car to a friend for her little boy. I hope he will love it!

Have you helped anyone this week, or been on the receiving end of kindness? I'd love to hear about it.

Sunday, 8 December 2013

This is an extra special Christmas for us, as it's baby girl's first Christmas. I wanted to do something special that would become a Christmas tradition for us, as well as record and celebrate our first Christmas as a family of four.

So, I thought I'd start a family Christmas window. The idea's simple - each member of our family has a ribbon, and fills it with Christmas things personal to them. They all hang from the curtain rail of a window. It instantly makes a room feel Christmassy, and it's personal too!

I decided to decorate our dining room window. Not only is it totally uninspiring at the moment, it's also where we'll eat Christmas dinner, so will be a real talking point.

Here's how we made it look very festive.

I pulled together bits and bobs of Christmas paper, gift tags, ribbons and some hand made Christmas decorations. I'm not sure baby girl looks too impressed with the prospect at this stage!

We decided to have four items each on 'our' ribbon. A handprint, a decoration, a star and a tag.

First of all, we selected our favourite paper and set about drawing round our hands. Getting baby girl to keep still was a bit tricky! Next we cut them out.

We did the same for a star each. They were different sizes depending how big we each were. Husband had the biggest, and baby girl had the smallest. Our son loved cutting his out!

Next we decorated some gift tags with our initials and a star. We wrote on the back a wish for 2014, or one thing we'd like Santa to bring us this year. Our son chose some Lego - I hope Santa was listening!

We chose a Christmas decoration each that we'd bought from our son's school Christmas fair a week or two ago. We buy a new decoration each every year, and this is a perfect way to use it. I chose a snowflake, our son chose a lovely Christmas tree decorated with buttons, he also chose a robin for baby girl and my husband selected a Christmas pudding (the same as his Christmas jumper!).

Finally, so we can remember in years to come which year this was, I cut out '2013' out of some lovely Christmassy paper.

So we had all our items, and I set about attaching them to our individual ribbons. For ease, I used staples. But if you have more time than me, you could punch holes in each item and knot the ribbon through.

Next, I cleared the window sill and added some lovely Christmassy pot pourri.

Then I hung the ribbons from the curtain rail to complete the look..

I love it! It might not be the most stylised, or 'perfect' look, but it's unique and completely personal to us. I plan to keep each ribbon and add to it year after year so we can see how much our children's hands have grown and how our wishes and present list changes. I may need longer ribbons at some point!

Do you make decorations with your family? I'd love to hear if you do, please leave a comment.

Monday, 25 November 2013

How would you like to win some lovely Chicco toys in time for Santa to deliver them?

I’m so pleased to be hosting this fab competition from Chicco. Baby
girl and I love being Chicco Happiness Testers and adore everything from
Chicco. It’s all great quality, thoughtfully designed and brilliant
value.

This is your chance to win some great toys from
Chicco’s fantastic bilingual toy range in time for Christmas. The toys
are great fun and educational too. Chicco happiness!

And if
this competition makes you happy, you’ll also love Chicco’s Wheel of Happiness. It rewards everyone who has spent £20 or more on Chicco toys
in the run up to Christmas with a gift. There are lots of gifts
available to win, from Chicco toys to family breaks and even a weekend
at Disneyland Paris. Just keep your receipt and enter the details on
the site for your chance to win. Easy!

PRIZES

First prize: Chicco Teddy Count with Me and Talking Dragon

Suitable
from six months, Teddy Count with Me teaches first words and numbers in
English and French. He even laughs when turned upside-down! Talking
Dragon is a lovely pull along toy suitable from nine months; his buttons
activate 10 songs in English and French.

Second prize: Chicco Talking Carpenter

Talking
Carpenter is an interactive workbench which helps to develop
co-ordination skills. It uses music to teach phrases, numbers, letters
and shapes in English and French. I’m sure a girl or a boy would love
it (I know our baby girl would love to play with it)!

HOW TO ENTER

Entry is really simple via the Rafflecopter widget. Don’t forget you can tweet every day for even more entries. Good luck!